The Benefits of Unclarity? Party Ambiguity and Voter Uncertainty in Elections to National Parliaments and the EP

Funding: Austrian Science Funds (FWF); requested support approximately 358,000 Euro

Status: In preparation / revise and resubmit

The spatial theory of voting is the workhorse of electoral studies. Since its codification by Anthony Downs, it has been criticised for relying on dubious or outright unrealistic assumptions, and model predictions have regularly been found at odds with the empirics of recent elections.

This project evaluates the political consequences of limited information. Party ambiguity arises when parties strategically present vague policy platforms, thereby reducing the political information available to the electorate. Voter uncertainty results when voters are confused by ambiguous and contradictory campaign signals, are not inclined to invest in acquiring political information, or lack the proficiency to evaluate limited information meaningfully.

The project proceeds in five interrelated steps:

1. Distinguishing ambiguity from uncertainty: A theoretical model illustrates how party ambiguity may be translated into voter uncertainty, and argues that the effects of ambiguous party positions must be mediated by perceptions of voter uncertainty to impact electoral choice.
2. Attitudes towards risk: Within the expected utility framework, voter reactions to ambiguity and uncertainty are moderated by attitudes towards risk. The project demonstrates that large parts of modern electorates are risk-neutral rather than risk-averse.
3. Electoral consequences: Party ambiguity and voter uncertainty will not per se diminish the electoral prospects of a political party; voter uncertainty likely reduces the salience of spatial vis-à-vis non-spatial components of voter utility.
4. Comparative empirical analysis: Hypotheses are tested with observational data from the European Election Studies and the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems in a comparative multilevel design.
5. Survey experiments: Design-based approaches extending conceptual frameworks from party ambiguity and choice under risk to choice under genuine Knightian uncertainty, applied to multidimensional policy spaces and multi-party competition.